New Pentagon manual declares journalists can be enemy combatants
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/21/military-manual-declares-war-on-spies-propagandist/?page=all
By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Sunday, June 21, 2015
The Pentagon's new thick book of instructions for waging war the legal
way says that terrorists also can be journalists.
The description appears in a 1,176-page, richly footnoted Department of
Defense Law of War Manual that tells commanders the right and wrong way
to kill the enemy. It says it's OK to shoot, explode, bomb, stab or cut
the enemy. Surprise attacks and killing retreating troops also are
permitted. But a U.S. warrior may not use poison or asphyxiating gases.
Going back decades, this is the Pentagon's first comprehensive,
all-in-one legal guide for the four military branches, who over the
years had issued their own law of war pamphlets for air, sea and ground
warfare.
The manual pushes aside the George W. Bush-era label of unlawful enemy
combatant for al Qaeda and the like. The new term of choice:
unprivileged belligerent.
An eye-catching section deals with a definition of journalists and how
they are expected to stay out of the fight.
The manual defines them this way: In general, journalists are
civilians. However, journalists may be members of the armed forces,
persons authorized to accompany the armed forces, or unprivileged
belligerents.
Lumping terrorist writers with bona fide scribes prompted one officer to
call the paragraph odd. A civilian lawyer who opines on war crime
cases called the wording an odd and provocative thing for them to
write.
Michael Rubin, a Middle East expert at the American Enterprise
Institute, said the manual reflects today's muddled world of journalism.
It's a realization that not everyone abides by the same standards we
do, said Mr. Rubin. Just as Hamas uses United Nations schools as
weapons depots and Iran uses charity workers for surveillance, many
terrorist groups use journalists as cover.
Mr. Rubin recalled that two al Qaeda terrorists posed as journalists to
assassinate anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. Chechen Islamists
went on missions with camera crews.
Journalists are the new consultant. Anyone can claim to be one, he
said. No American serviceman should ever be killed because a politician
told them they had to take a foreign journalist at his or her word.
Army Lt. Col. Joseph R. Sowers, a Pentagon spokesman, explained the
reasoning behind the inclusion of unprivileged belligerents as
journalists.
We do not think that there is any legal significance to the manual
listing unprivileged belligerents as sometimes being journalists because
the manual does not, itself, create new law, Col. Sowers said.
That last sentence simply reflects that, in certain cases, persons who
act as journalists may be members of the armed forces, persons
authorized to accompany the armed forces or unprivileged belligerents
rather than civilians. The fact that a person is a journalist does not
prevent that person from becoming an unprivileged belligerent.
Journalists, propagandists, spies
In the age of attacks by radical Islamic militants, unprivileged
belligerents most often fall into the category of terrorists. If
captured, they are not entitled to all the rights of a prisoner of war
under the Geneva Conventions, are subject to indefinite detention and
can be tried by a commission or war crimes tribunal instead of a
civilian court.
Perhaps the best-known terrorism publication is Inspire magazine,
started by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and its
American-born operative, the late Anwar al-Awlaki.
He viewed the online English language diatribes as a way to recruit
Muslims in the West, just as the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or
ISIS, sees social media as the means to persuade followers to commit
murder in their countries.
Some people might characterize the persons who put out Inspire magazine
as 'journalists,' but 'propagandist' would be more apt, Col. Sowers
said. Members of nonstate armed groups, such as al Qaeda, who also do
work that could be characterized as journalism, would continue to be
unprivileged belligerents notwithstanding their work as journalists. As
another example, enemy spies that used journalism as a cover would
likely also be considered unprivileged belligerents if they are caught
while engaged in espionage.
The Islamic State has taken the idea of a propaganda sheet such as
Inspire and expanded it, times thousands, in waves of social media
blasts on Twitter and elsewhere. The aim is the same: spread propaganda
about the supposed Muslim utopia being built in Syria and Iraq and
recruit terrorists.
A prominent writer for the Islamic State is a British resident who moved
his family to Syria. Last month, he published something of a travel
guide on Iraq and Syria and how the terrorist group will take care of
immigrant fighters as they wage jihad.
A Brief Guide to the Islamic State
